Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jean.
    “Get him ,” she whispered. “ He’s the one.”
    Then Jean thought, maybe she wants to help me.
    “Would you get the key? For the handcuffs? It’s in his pants pocket.”
    The girl didn’t seem to hear. She stopped at the puddle of vomit and lowered her face into it.
    Jean heard lapping sounds, and gagged. The girl raised her head, stared up at Jean, licked her dripping lips, then crawled forward.
    “No. Get back.”
    Opened her mouth wide.
    Christ!
    Jean smashed her knee up into the girl’s forehead. The head snapped back. The girl tumbled away.
    A chil spread through Jean. Her skin prickled with goosebumps. Her heart began to slam.
    It won’t stop with him.
    I’m next!
    The scalped girl, whose torso was an empty husk, rol ed over and started to push herself up.
    Jean leaped.
    She caught the tree limb with both hands, kicked toward the trunk but couldn’t come close to reaching it. Her body swept down and backward. As she started forward again, she pumped her legs high.
    She swung.
    She kicked and swung, making herself a pendulum that strained higher with each sweep.
    Her legs hooked over the barkless, dead limb.
    She drew herself up against its underside and hugged it.
    Twisting her head sideways, she saw the scalped girl crawling toward her again.
    Jean had never seen her stand.
    If she can’t stand up, I’m okay.
    But the others could stand.
    They were stil busy with the Reaper. Digging into him. Biting. Ripping off flesh with their teeth.
    He choked around the pliers and made high squeaky noises. As Jean watched, the charred girl crouched over the fire and put both hands into the flames. When she straightened up, she had a blazing stick trapped between the fingerless flaps of her hands. She lumbered back to the group, crouched, and set the Reaper’s pants on fire.
    The pants, pul ed down until they were stopped by his boot tops, wrapped him just below the knees.
    In seconds they were ablaze.
    The Reaper started screaming again. He squirmed and kicked. Jean was surprised he had that much life left in him.
    The key, she thought.
    I’l have to go through the ashes.
    If I live that long .
    Jean began to shinny out along the limb. It scraped her thighs and arms, but she kept moving, kept inching her way along. The limb sagged slightly. It groaned. She scooted farther, farther.
    Heard a faint crackling sound.
    Then was stopped by a bone white branch that blocked her left arm.
    “No!” she gasped.
    She thrust herself forward and rammed her arm against the branch. The impact shook it just a bit. A few twigs near the far end of it clattered and fel .
    The branch looked three inches thick where it joined the main limb. A little higher up, it seemed thin enough for her to break easily—but she couldn’t reach that far, not with her wrists joined by the short chain of the handcuffs. The branch barred her way like the arm and hand of a skeleton pleased to keep her treed until its companions finished with the Reaper and came for her.
    She clamped it between her teeth, bit down hard on the dry wood, gnashed on it. Her teeth barely seemed to dent it.
    She lowered her head. Spat dirt and grit from her mouth. Turned her head.
    The Reaper was no longer moving or making any sounds. Pale smoke drifted up from the black area where his pants had been burning. The charred girl who had set them ablaze now held his severed arm over the campfire. The slimy, breastless girl was pul ing a boot onto one of her feet.
    The skinned girl, kneeling by the Reaper’s head, had removed the pliers from his mouth. At first Jean thought she was pinching herself with them. That wasn’t it, though. One at a time, she was squashing the maggots that squirmed on her bel y. The rock thrower’s head was buried in the Reaper’s open torso. She reared up, coils of intestine drooping from her mouth. The rotted and armless girl lay flat between the black remains of the Reaper’s legs, tearing at the cavity where his genitals used to